… Scientists suggest that the greater contribution to skyrocketing methane levels has more to do with biological sources of the gas. Methane molecules are made of carbon and hydrogen atoms, and the carbon in biological methane tends to be slightly lighter than the carbon in methane associated with fossil fuels. And over the past decade or so, the proportion of lighter methane in the atmosphere compared to heavier methane has been rising. “I think this perspective is basically right,” said Martin Helmann, of the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, in Jena, Germany, in an email. Helmann was not involved in the research.

The authors of the Science paper have some ideas about why biological sources of methane may be increasing. “In the southern hemisphere especially,” Nisbet said, “but also in the northern tropics, a series of really wet years has caused wetlands to expand”—and vegetation decomposing in swamps and shallow lakes is a well known source of natural methane emissions. Another is cows, which generate methane as they digest their food, then belch it out into the air.

These explanations, however, aren’t at all definitive — another key point Nisbet and his co-authors make in the Science paper. “The measurements we make in the air are direct,” he said. “Estimates of where methane is coming from, by contrast, is much less reliable. You estimate the contributions from gas leaks, count up the cows, estimate the emissions from wetlands. There’s obviously going to be a lot of error.”

And in fact, there is: the estimates of how much methane should be going into the atmosphere are greater than what actually ends up there. Tracking methane emissions more accurately is crucial, said the scientists, and not just as an academic exercise.

“If we want to control greenhouse-gas emissions,” Nisbet said, “it’s obviously important to know where the emissions are coming from.”

A section of the controversial US-Mexico border fence expansion project crosses previously pristine desert sands at sunrise on March 14, 2009, between Yuma, Arizona and Calexico, California. The barrier stands 15 feet tall and sits on top of the sand so it can lifted by a machine and repositioned whenever the migrating desert dunes begin to bury it. The almost seven miles of floating fence cost about $6 million per mile to build.

I love the choices of phrase: “controversial… fence” and “previously pristine desert,” and the words “almost” and “about.” There’s nothing controversial about a sovereign nation protecting her borders with a fence or otherwise, and the desert is so pristine that it’s relatively devoid of flora and fauna. It’s pure pristine desolation.

Reports vary as to the the border fence height (15-20 feet), the length and the cost; however, local law enforcement says that it works, and that arrests of drug smugglers and “coyotes” along the Yuma border have dropped from 800 per day down to only 15 – a reduction of over 98 per cent in illegal traffic since 2005.

It also translates to a huge reduction in the related costs of apprehending illegals, detaining and housing them, conducting legal hearings and deportations, and it cripples the Mexican drug cartels as a bonus.

Border fences through accessible regions makes simple economical sense, especially in the long term. How do we pay for it? Reduce the annual budget for the NSA by only 1.5 percent each year for the next 10 years.

Then, if a low skilled workforce is still needed, we revive the successful Bracero Program and ensure that the workers don’t get chumped.

[soapbox ap deactivated]

I like the photo. It looks like the work of Christo, only more functional.

BTW. nature doesn’t run on mathematics, and the typical example of a nautilus shell exhibiting the proportions of Phi has been debunked. It’s still a fun exercise, counting the seeds in a sunflower’s (or pine cone’s) spirals and dividing the larger number by the smaller to see how close it approximates Phi.

Oddly enough, if you multiply Phi by ten it gives you the approximate average miles per hour on Interstate 10 between Santa Monica and Los Angeles in either direction at any hour of the day and any day of the week. TRUE.

[Image of Hurricane Sandy (2012) found here. The definition of Phi is stuck in my head, but it’s also found here.]